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Part Two
Can You Keep a Secret?
HAYLEY: TODAY
(Present Day)
San Francisco, California
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COREY STARED AT MEfrom the other side of the couch, hours after he told his team members they could go home. We’d eaten our dinner in silence, just like all the nights before, and I was beginning to wonder if he was rethinking letting me walk out on him.
Not wanting to start the conversation, I picked at the seam of my jeans.
“Hayley?” he called my name, his voice deep.
“Yes?”
“Look at me.”
I looked up, and he moved closer to me on the couch. He cupped my face in his hands and looked into my eyes.
“I’m sorry.” He kissed my lips, softly trailing his tongue against the edge of my mouth. “Very sorry.”
“For what?” I wasn’t letting him get off easy, panty-wetting kisses or not.
He smiled. “For the way I’ve treated you over the past few weeks.”
“And for the ridiculous rules you set when I got here?”
“Yes.”
“And for—”
He kissed me again before I could finish. “I’m sorry for everything, Hayley. Fucking everything. I also think we should start over.”
“As friends?”
“No.” He smirked. “I think we both know that at this point, there’s no reason for us to attempt to be just friends.”
My heart fluttered against my chest. “You want to date me?”
“We can call it that for now, but given our history, I think I know you too well to simply ‘date’ you, Hayley.” He ran his fingers through my hair. “I mean, of course I would like to know the new you better, but I think we should try to pick up where we left off before. Well, where we would’ve left off if you hadn’t stopped talking to me. Nonetheless, I think you’re still the same friend I had before.”
“Are you the same friend I had before?”
“I am,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “I just like a few different things.”
“Like rough sex?”
“Yes.” He bit my bottom lip briefly and let it go. “Like rough sex. But I told you before, I won’t be rough with you, at first.” He let out a breath and paused. “I want you to be mine, despite the obvious conflict of interest.”
“You really think Jonathan would be upset about you dating me?”
“I think he would murder me if he found out I was dating you,” he said. “And then he would be upset that I drove him to do it in the first place.”
“That doesn’t sound like my brother.”
